MojoMonday Sketch 208

I thought I would end the week with another sketch card, this time from MojoMonday .  I have been an admirer of this sketch blog for awhile now and have used their archived sketches for projects before, but I've never made one of the weekly sketch cards and submitted it to the blog.  Time to change that!

First, a warning....Kendra, if you are reading this before you receive something in the mail from me, look away now!!


Ok, now that she is gone, this is Kendra's birthday card.  Her birthday is next Saturday, and as I mentioned before, she is leaving for Hawaii that day, so I've been mulling over ideas for her card so that I could get it done and mailed to AZ before she leaves.  So, since I liked the design of the sketch, I used it for her birthday card.  I have also been itching to use a new sheet of washi paper I picked up a couple of weeks ago, and this was a great chance to use that as well!

First, here is the sketch:

I chose the square design for my card.  Here it is:

There were so many colors in this washi paper that I loved, it was hard to decide where to start!  Ultimately I chose a deep blue card base and layered it with metallic gold.  The teal frames around the washi paper are a bit darker shade than the teal in the washi paper, so it stands out more than it would have if I'd used the lighter shade that I initially thought I would.  The flower was cut on my Sizzix Big Shot with the Flower Layers Set #3 Sizzlits set.  I used a peach paper to coordinate with the floral pattern in the paper, and to further coordinate, I inked the edges with gold stamp ink. I thought about putting a ribbon on somewhere, but really didn't want to detract from the clean lines, which I kind of like.  I think the flower softenes it up sufficiently.  In hindsight. maybe I should have used that peach paper to frame the sentiment instead of the green, just to tie it together better...but oh well, maybe next time.


Tomorrow my daughter is having a friend over, and they are going to make birthday cards for one of their dance teachers, whose birthday is next week.  We went to Michael's today and she picked out some very pretty paper to use, so maybe I will post the results when she is done!  I also have another sketch I might work on tomorrow, the one posted yesterday at CardPatterns .  There are a few more birthdays in the family coming up, so maybe I will use it for a card for one of them.  Later!

New Card

Good Sunday morning!  I am excited, because I am trying something new this week.  I think I am finally ready to go a little more "public" with my cards, so have been thinking of ways I might do that.  I already listed one card in my Etsy shop- this one, and what's really exciting (for me, anyway) is that someone favorited it!  I eventually would like to work up to listing more cards, but I have to make some first, of course.  Always on the lookout for new inspiration, I spent some time this weekend surfing the 'net looking for card sketch sites.  I already check out MojoMonday on a regular basis, and wondered if there are more like it out there.  There are!  I found this one- CardPatterns, and enjoyed checking out the sketches there so much, that I decided to try out their sketch for this week.  There are birthdays coming up for several family and friends, so this is great timing- I plan to send this one to my sister-in-law, whose birthday is in the first week of October.

So, here's the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

I printed out the sentiments on the computer, and punched them with a 1" circle punch. Ideally, I would have loved to have stamped and embossed these, but since the "Happy" and "Birthday" are on separate pieces, it didn't work out that way- all of my Happy Birthday stamps have the whole phrase together.  The flowers are punched from a MS 4-petal flower punch, and the leaves are also a MS punch.  I used one of my favorite papers on this one, because it has so many nice color shades to work with.

So, now I just have to upload a link to this blog post to their site, and it will be out there for everyone to see!  I hope my work is up to par with the rest of the submissions!  I will look forward to future sketches from this blog.  What's nice about it is that the sketches are posted on Saturdays, so that gives me the weekend to work on something.

Also this week, I started testing the waters of teams on Etsy...I have resisted thus far, but decided it might be advantageous to be able to chat with other shop owners with similar interests.  I applied, and was accepted to, the Flowers and Romance Lovers team, as well as the Card Crafters of Etsy and The Oregon Etsy Team.  I have applied to two others, but have not been accepted yet. :(  Hopefully it is just that they are not very active (they don't seem to be), and not that they don't like my shop!  Oh, and I also joined the Etsy Garage Sale team, which is where shop owners can post advertisements of sales.  In addition to joining some teams, I also got a Twitter account!  I have no idea what I will do with it, but I decided to finally see what it's all about.  I have not yet figured out how to get that little thingie that says "Follow me on Twitter" on my blog, but if you DO want to follow me, I think you can probably search for me on Twitter- just look for bgardencreation (no "s" on the end, as I guess that exceeded the character limit).

I have a few ideas for some other cards I would like to make for my shop, and I am going to try to work on those today.  I might be back to share that stuff later.  Also in my plans for the near future is making a card for my BFF Kendra, whose birthday is in a couple of weeks.  She's leaving on vacation on her birthday, so I don't know if I will have something finished and mailed by the time she leaves, but if not, it will be waiting for her when she gets back from Hawaii, all tan and rested!

A Few Cards and a Bookmark

Whoo, it's been busy since school started!  I finally had a chance to get some crafting done in the last week though.  Things kind of started to back up on me a little...I had the card for the fall card swap for the PBS Swappers group that I needed to do, plus my daughter got some lovely gifts for her birthday, so I wanted to make some thank you cards that she could send for those.  I managed to do all of that this weekend, so I feel like I really accomplished something!

First up is the fall card.  I am hosting this swap, the first one I have hosted.  The theme is fall, and it could be a fall holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving) or just a fall theme.  Since I have acquired quite a few leaf stamps, I wanted to do a card with fall leaves.  The book I have had a neat one that I liked, so I used it for inspiration.  It used a rainbow stamp pad in fall colors, which I could not find in any store, so I ordered it from the JoAnn's website.  I also found a cool oak leaf embossing punch at Michaels for 40% off, and thougth it would be perfect for embellishing the card as well.  So, here is the card:

The card base is kind of a rusty red, then there is a layer of deep mustard yellow, then a deep olive green before the off-white front stamped with fall leaves.  I used a crinkle technique with the green layer, the same one I used on the sympathy card in this post.  Mental note: next time I decide to use that crinkle technique, it should be done BEFORE cutting the paper to the measurements I need.  Crinkling shrinks the paper a bit, so that can throw off everything else!  Anyway, I really like the multi-colored leaves.  I paid a bit more for that stamp pad that I normally would have spent on something like that, but I think it's worth it!  In addition to stamping the leaves on the card front, I also used the ink from the same stamp pad to color the punched/embossed oak leaf.  Here is a close-up:

I picked up a cheap package of make-up sponges at Target the other day, and used those for applying the ink to the leaf, which was punched from off-white paper.  I really like how it came out!

Next is some thank you cards that I made for Meredith.  I started out making them with one paper, and then ran out, so had to do a couple in a different paper.  The card bases are packaged cards that I got in the $1 bin at Michaels, and it was perfect, because we needed 8 cards and there were 8 in the package, plus envelopes!

The first one has the paper I started with, but I didn't have enough, so had to dig into my stash and find another one that worked.  They are both a pretty simple design, and the inside is blank so that Meredith can write a personalized note to each person to thank them for their gift.

One other thing I did a couple of weeks ago was to make a bookmark...for myself!  Yes, I have dozens of bookmarks around the house and am never lacking for one, but since I started doing this almost 2 years ago now, I have never really made one specifically for myself.  For this one, I had inspiration- this:

This is a book cover I purchased from Rdsutherland311 , an Etsy seller, a couple of months ago.  I loved the blue and purple batik fabric- two of my favorite colors, especially together!  The shop owner, Rebekah, was absolutely wonderful to work with- she customized the book cover for me, adding the velcro closure.  Her book covers usually come with a built-in ribbon bookmark, however I wanted to be able to use my own bookmarks, so I asked her to leave the ribbon bookmark out.  She made this beautiful book cover within a couple of days after I ordered it, and I had it very soon after.  It is so pretty- I just love looking at it!  After using it for a few weeks, I decided to make a bookmark in the same color scheme:

Hopefully you can see that the middle layer is a mottled purple and blue paper, which really ties together the blue border and deep purple larkspur flowers.  It's the same paper I used in this card
 awhile back.  I think it looks really nice with the book cover.

That's it for now.  I have a few things on the horizon- a few family and friends birthdays that I will probably try to make cards for, as well as another swap I will be hosting at the PBS Swappers group.  This one is for winter/holiday gift mini-cards.  I already have some ideas, so am looking forward to getting started on those!

Birthday Invitations

I am happy to report that I heard from Carol, the nice lady who ordered a personalized bookmark last week, and she loves the pictures of the gift envelope!  I am so glad, and I can't wait for her to be able to see it in person!  Hope she likes it as much in reality as in the pictures!

The only other project I have done is some invitations for my daughter Meredith's birthday.  We are going to invite a few of her friends from dance class out for ice cream after class on the Saturday after her birthday.  I decided I'd like to make something that had ice cream embellishments on it, because...well, because it's ice cream!  I was surprised that I had a hard time finding anything in the craft stores.  I went to Craft Warehous, Joann's, and Michaels, and only had luck at Michael's.  Craft Warehouse had a scrapbook paper with ice cream cones on it, but the colors were not quite the palette I had in mind.  I came up empty at JoAnn's- I think that's the first time I have left JoAnn's without making a purchase.  Finally at Michael's I found some really cute ice cream cone dimensional stickers that I figured I could do something with.  I also found some striped paper in the same color palette, so that is what I started with.  Here are the finished products:

I printed the text out on the computer, and stamped and embossed the "You're Invited" part wtih a stamp.  I used a glittery embossing powder, so it is nice and sparkly.  The blue outer paper has sparkles in it too, as does the magenta paper that frames the ice cream cones on the reverse side.  I like them, and hopefully Meredith will too!

I ordered an autumn leaves color stamp pad from JoAnn's online that I plan to use for my fall cards, and that will be my next project.  I'm also still working on my Etsy shop- I relisted a few fall leaf bookmarks that were left over from last year, and I reshot some photos as well.  I finally figured out why my pictures have not been looking very good- somehow the resolution setting got changed to the smallest resolution!  I managed to figure out how to change it, and now the pictures are looking much better, not so fuzzy/blurry.  I still have some more that I need to retake, but I'm just trying to do a few at a time.

Also, I wanted to mention, I am having a clearance sale in my Etsy shop- selected items are half off!  Check it out!

That's all for this week- see you next time!

Personalized Bookmark and Gift Envelope

Whew, it's been such a busy time the last couple of weeks!  School starts for my two kiddos next Wednesday (the 7th) so we've had all kinds of things going on in preparation.  My son (10th grade) had 2 weeks of marching band camp, my daughter had her summer dance recital at the state fair last Saturday, and both of them have been trying to cram in as much fun time with their friends in these last few days of vacation.

While I haven't done a lot of crafting, I have been doing some behind-the-scenes stuff...organizing supplies, trying to decide on what to do for a fall card for the swap I am hosting at the PBS Swappers Paper Crafting group.  I had to do some maintenance on my Etsy shop, since they changed to relevancy search (which, by the way, I think is fantastic)- my titles and tags needed editing, and with almost 50 items in my shop, it took me awhile to get it all done.  Next, I really need to redo a lot of my photos, because they changed the photo resolution awhile back, and now all my pictures look awful- close-ups are blurry, and the colors are all off.  So that is going to be quite a project!  I am also planning out what I want to have in my shop for fall and winter, and am thinking about cleaning house and clearing out some of the older bookmark designs.  I might just have to have a big clearance sale!

I did get an order this week, and I was excited about it, because it is for a personalized 2-flower bookmark.  My customer is a very nice lady named Carol, and she inquired about a pretty envelope for the bookmark.  How perfect is that?!  I told her I have been experimenting with gift envelopes, and she agreed to be my first live guinea pig!  I offered her a gift envelope for no extra charge, since I'm still developing the concept, and asked if it would be OK with her that I post pictures on my blog and possibly use them in the future as example pictures in my shop.  She agreed, and I very happily made an envelope to go with the bookmark.  I am very happy with how it turned out, and I really hope that Carol likes it too!

This is the front (or would that be the back?) where it opens:

The seal is similar to the other ones I did, punched with a scalloped circle, then layered with smaller circle punches.  The lighting was not great this morning when I shot this picture, but there is a clear jewel in the center, looks like a little sparkly diamond.

Here is the other side:

As you can see, the envelope itself is a deep bluish-purple.  I used it along with silver, because those are the colors in the bookmark.  I had this pretty silver and white toille patterned paper and thought it would be perfect for this, and I love it!  It is layered with a strip of metallic silver paper, then with a strip of purple, which has been punched with a floral border punch, so that the silver shows through.

And here is the bookmark, inside the envelope:

I lined the envelope with white and used a lace corner punch on the corners, which I also used on the front flap of the envelope.  Temporary adhesive holds the bookmark in the envelope, and it's nice because it usually does not leave any residue on the back of the bookmark.  It wipes off easily if some does remain, though.  I used the same temporary adhesive on the seal, so that it is easily opened and resealed.

I'm really happy with this, and I hope Carol likes it!  It sure was a lot of fun to come up with the envelope design, and now I am more motivated than ever to offer this option in my shop.

Hopefully next time I will have a fall card design to share, as that will be my next project.  Also, my daughter's birthday is coming up later this month, and I think we will take a few of her friends from dance class out for ice cream at Dairy Queen after their Saturday class.  So I'm thinking of making up some little invitations to hand out for that.  We're not doing a big birthday party at home this year, but I know she will enjoy ice cream with her friends, and she will like helping design and make the invitations too.

Back with a Christmas card, and some flowers

Hello!  We had a lovely vacation up to Montana the other week- it was wonderful up there, not too hot for a change.  We unplugged for a couple of days up at my cousin's cabin waaayyy out in the middle of nowhere, and that was awesome!  I have never experienced such dead quiet before- no noise from the road or neighbors, because they're on 5 acres and pretty far from anyone else.  It was great!  Not even any cell service- when I could get a signal, it was from a Canadian cell company, and I'm not one to pay international rates, so...no cell service.  It's always nice to get away from it all, but it's hard coming back, and I'm just now, a week later, starting to feel like things are back to normal.

I had some catching up to do once we got back, because I realized that the embellishment swap that I signed up for with the PBS Swappers group has a pretty short deadline- they have to be to Christy by the 20th.  Yikes- guess I got this one mixed up with the Christmas in July swap, which is due by the 30th!  I got a new Sizzix Sizzlits die set right before I left on vacation, and was anxious to put it to use.  I signed up for medium sized flowers, which are 1.5-2.5 inches in diameter, and these were perfect for that.  Instructions are to send 4 flowers to each person signed up, so I decided to do 4 different flowers.  One of the flower dies looked an awful lot to me like daffodils, so I decided to use  yellow shades for it.

This is cute.  The outer and middle layer are from the die set.  The center was punched with a small snowflake punch for the flower stamin.  I actually experimented with a star punch first, but the snowflake worked out better.

I also finished two other sets of flowers:

The shape of the one on the left might look familiar...I used this Sizzix die last year for the Christmas in July card swap for my poinsettia cards.  Here, I've used pink and brown shades, including a patterned paper that I liked.  The center is a glittery brown embellishment that I had left over from last year when I did that custom order of Black-eyed Susan bookmarks for an Etsy client, and made a gift bag to match, using those as the centers for the paper Black-Eyed Susans- pictures in this post.  The one on the right was made from another Sizzix die that I got recently.  I think I got that one at JoAnn's at the 4th of July sale they had.  The outer two layers are from that, and the inner two are from punches I already had.  I used a glittery card stock I found at JoAnn's the other day when I stopped in.  Oh, I was so excited to go there!  They are now carrying Spellbinder dies, and I got another deckled rectangle Nestabilities set!  I ordered one from their website a couple weeks ago, but the one I got yesterday has longer/skinnier rectangles, which are perfect for stamping card sentiments on.  Their prices are WAY better than at Craft Warehouse- they've been 40% off at JoAnn's, so I will have to go back and see if there are any others I want.  Plus, JoAnn's offers a lot more coupons than CW does, so I will probably get my dies there from now on.

So, now I just need to do one more set of flowers for the embellishment swap.  I have the mostly done, but still need to finish them off, then I can mail them out.  My last set are in shades of purple and I think will be pretty when they are done.

Also this weekend, I finally finished my Christmas cards for the Christmas in July card swap.  Woohoo- I am glad to have these done!

I had a lot of trouble with these for some reason.  I picked up the holly paper over a month ago at JoAnn's, and had done a sample card with no problem.  But my sample card was a standard A2 size, which was not big enough for my Merry Christmas stamp to fit on.  So I increased the size to 4 7/8x7.  The problem with that was that then I had too much empty space on the bottom of the card.  I tried making a few different holly embellishments myself, only to fail with each one, and finally ended up buying some at JoAnn's.  So, I cheated a little bit.  Usually, I am not in favor of using premade embellishments on my cards, but in this case I really could not find anything else, and I was running out of time.  So, I cheated, but just this once. ;)

Some fun news- I have volunteered to host my first swap at the PBS Swappers site!  I am going to do a fall-themed card swap.  Cards can be for a fall holiday (Halloween or Thanksgiving), or just a general fall theme.  I have lots of ideas on this one, so it will be hard to narrow it down!  I hope I get lots of sign-ups for this one- it's so much more fun when there are many participants!

That's it for now.  We're gearing up for the start of school in the next few weeks, so spare time will be scarce!  Hopefully I can finish up my flowers for the embellishment swap, and get started on the fall themed cards soon.  Til next time!

Anniversary Card and Some New Bookmarks

I think I have mentioned this anniversary card at least a couple of times.  We have some very good friends, M and E.  Waaaayyyy back in the olden days, aka the 90s, we bought our first houses down the street from each other when we were all pretty much newlyweds.  They were expecting the first of their three sons (who just turned SIXTEEN, OMG!) at the time, and we became fast friends.  My son is right in between their older two boys age-wise- D, their oldest is 16, Josh is 15, and J, their middle son, is 14.  They also have an 11 year old.  Three boys...they are a busy family!  Anyway, they are wonderful friends.  D and J are Josh's best friends, and have been since basically birth.  It is so neat to have seen these guys grow up together and maintain the bonds that they established at such young ages!  We really cherish our friendships with this family.  They are amongst the people who we know 100% we can count on, and we are, I hope, the same to them.  We have seen each other through some rough times, as well as shared the good times over the years.  So it is with much joy and happiness that we share their 20th wedding anniversary with them!  They are having a party (adults only, woo hoo!) this coming Friday night.  Which immediately precedes our vacation to Montana- we leave on Saturday- so I am glad that we will be able to celebrate with them!

So, I wanted to make them a card.  I have really struggled with it for some reason.  Not sure why- I just couldn't find any inspiration.  Usually, I have some idea or concept that I start with, and it kind of puts itself together from there.  It can start with something I know about the recipient, or I might get my inspiration from a paper, color, flower, etc.  For this one, I had the idea of putting a picture of the two of them on the card, but that was where I ran out of ideas.  It was easy enough to swipe a picture of them off of one of their Facebook pages.  But the rest of the design?  I kept coming up blank.  Two weeks I have been turning this over and over in my mind, and counting the days as I was running out of time.  Today was the last day I had to work on this, since I really can't count on having time for crafting during the week.  The pressure was on!

I knew I wanted the photo in black and white, so that dictated a somewhat simple color scheme.  Their home is just lovely- I wish I had E's flair for decorating!  They have a lot of neutrals in their house, so I didn't want anything too bright and flashy.  Something simple, classic, with clean lines.  They have some furniture I just love, a sofa and loveseat, in a deep, rich eggplant purple.  I thought that would be too dark, so I stayed with the purple idea and chose a lighter shade of dusky lavendar.  It goes well with black and white and gives just enough of a hint of color to make it interesting.  That decided, I moved on to the other elements of the card.  I wanted to put a sentiment on the front, but I wasn't sure what.  For some weird reason, out of nowhere, I conjured up a quote from the Beatles, "in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".  Except I was thinking it was John Lennon, and I wasn't sure of the exact wording, so I Googled it.  Found out it was the Beatles, and decided that that wasn't necessarily the message I wanted on the front of the card, but now I had a direction to go in.  I Googled John Lennon quotes, and found one I liked..  I also pulled from somewhere in my subconscious "live, laugh, love" which honestly, I think, really describes my friends, and wanted to incorporate that somehow.  So I had all these fragments of ideas that I needed to put together.  Here is what I came up with:

 

I embossed the dusky lavendar background with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  The torn corners came from an idea in that card-making book I'm always talking about- I thought it was kind of cool, and softens the look a little bit, with all of the rest of the lines being so straight and clean.  I used small silver brads in the corners of the sentiment box, which just gives it, I don't know, something extra.  The sentiments are all framed in black, and the inside is relatively simple.  I like it- I hope they do too!  They have the funnest party EVER planned (is "funnest" a word?  My kids say not.)  They want the ladies to come wearing a bridesmaid dress, and the guys to show up in a suit jacket.  Not a suit, just a jacket- so anything goes for underneath!  Sometime this week after work, I need to make a stop at Goodwill and see what they have in the dress section....I'm envisioning something pastel, frilly and fluffy- the most God-awful obnoxious bridesmaid dress ever!  And I think my husband needs to wear his very formal pin-striped navy blue suit jacket with cargo shorts.  Won't that be an..interesting..look??!

In addition to the card, I did a few bookmarks today.  This is in preparation for expanding my idea of the gift envelopes and matching cards- I wanted a few new designs to work with.

This one uses a forest green hand-made paper, and a neat leaf-patterned paper, along with the daisy.  I like the fresh, clean colors.

This one incorporates a classic color combo, brown and pink.  I picked up this patterned paper at Michael's a few weeks ago, and it coordinated perfectly with the pink larkspur.

This is some Japanese washi paper that I got this week at the office supply store downtown.  I love the contrasting pink and green.

And this is one of the patterned papers I picked up at JoAnn's that first weekend that Meredith and I went to the new store and went nuts.  Also used a pink larkspur here, though I wish I had a darker pink flower to use instead.


We are heading to Montana in a few days for our summer vacation- up to see my cousin Trina and her hubby, with whom we always have a great time!  I am looking forward to some quiet, tranquil time to unplug and just hang out, read books, go fishing, and not think about work!  See you after vacation!

Another Bookmark Gift Pack

I am really liking this gift pack idea, and have been looking forward to trying a few more designs.  This week, I decided to do one with a pressed flower bookmark, and I actually have a good excuse!  I've been very busy at work on a big project for one of the cities that we work with.  The project manager at the city is a lovely woman who I have enjoyed working with, but she is leaving the city to pursue other interests and go back to school.  Her last day is in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to make her a card to express my best wishes for her future plans.  So, I figured, why not give her a bookmark as well?  It might come in handy when she starts school!  I chose one of the one-flower bookmarks I had previously made as the starting point:

I love the contrasting purple and green shades in this one!  First up, I made a card:

I got this butterfly stamp during the big 4th of July sale at Craft Warehouse, and it came also with the "Take Wing" sentiment.  I thought it was very appropriate for wishing someone well on future endeavors!  The card base is green, followed by a deep plum layer, then the same striped pattern paper that was used in the bookmark.  The butterfly and message were stamped onto white card stock with deep purple pigment ink and heat embossed.

Here is a close-up of the butterfly:

I colored in the white spots with two shades of green watercolor pencil and blended the color with a paper towel with a bit of water on it.  In hindsight, I wish I had used just the light green, because the darker green I used around the edges has just a bit too much blue in it to go with the rest of the colors in this card.  Oh well, live and learn!

Here's the inside of the card:

Pretty simple- a fuschia layer, followed by the white layer, which I used a corner punch on the corners, and the "Best Wishes" stamped in purple.  I punched a butterfly with a MS punch out of the same striped pattern paper and glued it on the bottom.

The gift envelope for the bookmark:

Sorry the lighting is kind of bad on this pic- the purple is not quite so blue in reality!  I used that same corner punch on the corners.  The seal is similar to the one I did on the previous gift envelope, except I added the butterfly punched from the striped paper.

And here it all is together:

I lined the inside of this envelope with green, with the corners punched with the same lace corner punch.  I like how it turned out!  These are some of my favorite colors, and this bookmark is one of my favorite one-flower bookmarks, so I am pleased with the results.  I hope the recipient of my gift and card like them!

I have several other things in the works, or at least in the planning stages.  I still have the Christmas cards for the Christmas in July swap on the back burner, because sign-ups for the swap go through the end of the month.  I don't have to mail them until the end of August, so I have plenty of time for that.  I am also in the process of figuring out a design for an anniversary card for some very good friends of ours, who just had their 20th anniversary.  They will be having a party in a couple of weeks, so I want to make a card for them.  I also have a friend whose birthday is coming up, and I was thinking of surprising her with a photo bookmark with pictures of her kids on it.  She has two daughters, a step-daughter and step-son, so this would be a double-sided bookmark.  She has lots of pics on Facebook, so if I can find some good ones to copy from there, I'm in business!  All of that should keep me busy for awhile!

An Idea I'm Working On

Howdy!  So nice that it is summer, the kids are out of school and most activities, and I have more time to craft!  I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile, and I finally started experimenting to see how it would actually work.  I haven't been doing much in the way of bookmarks lately, in favor of developing my card-making skills, but I've wanted to figure out a way to incorporate them both.  At first I thought about doing a card that has a bookmark attached, and I might explore that idea at some point, but for now, I'm pursuing another idea: a bookmark and card gift pack.  I designed a simple gift envelope for a bookmark (still tweaking the dimensions and basic design) and a card, all of which have matching designs.  My initial experiment is with a very simple patterned bookmark, no pressed flowers, but in the future I will see about doing something with the flower bookmarks as well.  Here is what I came up with:

Here's the card.  I have had this cute paper for awhile, creme with a black floral pattern.  The card base is black, then has a layer of a light beige crinkle-textured paper (love that stuff!  I got it at Target a year and a half ago, and can't find it anywhere now).  Then the patterned paper is framed in black as well.  I stamped the messages on pieces of creme paper in black, and embossed them.  These are also framed in black.  I punched the flower out with a 1" flower punch in two layers, and used the rounded end of a paintbrush to sort of curl the petals in the center.  The leaf is punched in black with a MS leaf punch and glued to the card.  The flower is attached with a small black brad.  I have never used brads before, but I like it- now I would like to get a few different sizes to try on other things.

This is the inside of the card, stamped in black, not embossed.  I need to work on not stamping crooked!

This is the back side of the gift envelope.  I made this using my MS scoring board, then glued strips of paper on in coordinating colors/patterns to the card.

The front of the envelope.  The seal was punched out in black using a 1.5 inch scalloped circle punch, and layered with a 1" circle punched out of the floral pattern paper.  A strip of the patterned paper was adhered to the edge of the envelope flap.  I put temporary adhesive on the part of the seal that sticks to the envelope, so that it is easily opened and can restick.

And here is the bookmark.  As I said, simple design, black border with the floral pattern paper, laminated, and topped with a black ribbon.  I tied the ribbon in a bow to place it in the envelope, so that it would not hang out.  The bookmark is adhered to the inside of the envelope with temporary adhesive, so it is easily removed.

And here is the whole gift package together!

I had a lot of fun putting this together, and am already dreaming up new designs!  I would like to work on the structure of the envelope- maybe round the flap or soemething along those lines.  I've also played with the idea of using velcro for the enclosure, but not sure I would want to bump up the production costs for that.  Next I will be playing with designs that use the pressed flower bookmarks.  I have yet to find a good way to make a card with pressed flowers that keeps the flower protected, so I'm thinking I will use the one-flower bookmarks that use patterned paper, so that I can use the same paper on the card and envelope.

Here is another card I did last weekend.  We went to some friends' house for the 4th of July, and she had just gotten back from CA where she went for her step-father's funeral.  I had seen a sympathy card design that I liked in my book, so used that as a guide on the design.  My colors and stamps were not exactly as the one in the book, and it didn't come out as nice as the one in the book, but my friend seemed to like it:

 I did not have a sympathy stamp, so I hand-wrote the sentiment on this one in silver gel pen.  I used a crinkle technique from my book on the creme paper base- very easy!  Just spray the paper slightly with water, then wad up into a ball, flatten, and dry.  I used a dry iron on a dish towel over the paper to flatten and speed up the drying.  I then stamped it with a leaf stamp using a mossy green ink.  The striped square is made with an orange paper that I mottled with a goldish yellow ink, then stamped in with white ink with a stripe stamp.  The card in the book used a pinstripe stamp, which I could not find, so this worked as a substitute.  Anyway, it's not the best card I've ever made, but it worked.


That's it for this week!  I was going to get started on my Christmas cards for the Christmas in July swap, but decided not to just yet, since sign-ups go through the end of the month, so I'd rather wait until I know how many I need to make.  I do have all the supplies for them- although if I have to make more than 4 of them, I might have to go back to JoAnn's and get more of one of the papers.

I have a new project on the horizon, and that is an anniversary card for some very dear friends of ours who are having their 20th anniversary this week.  They are going to be throwing themselves an anniversary party in a couple of weeks, so this is a chance for me to try a card I have not done before- it is challenging, but fun, to do something other than birthday cards!

A Birthday Card

It has actually been a pretty busy week craft-wise, but I don't have much to show for it at this time.  It's a holiday weekend- the 4th of July is tomorrow- so there are sales everywhere!  I have hit the sales at a few different stores, and have been very excited about the deals I've gotten!  First, Craft Warehouse sent out some email coupons, 40% off one item for Friday and Saturday, 50% off one item for Sunday and Monday.  I have managed to get over there every day so far to take advantage of the sales and coupons.  For one thing, all of their stamps are 40% off - no coupon needed!  I've gotten a few that I am excited about.  I also got a Scotch brand tape gun which I am really liking so far!  I have been using up a lot of those smaller craft adhesive cartridges and after talking to one of the sales ladies at CW, I was persuaded to get the Scotch one.  It is pretty nice- I am still getting the hang of it, but it will pay for itself pretty quicky, since the refills cost less than the other ones overall.

I have been working on a couple of different things- one is a Christmas card for the Christmas in July swap for the PBS Swappers group.  Sign-ups are still going on, so I don't know how many I need to make yet, but I wanted to figure out a design.  I had an idea in mind that was based on something I saw in the book I mentioned in my last posting....but you know how sometimes you get an idea in your head, but no matter what you do, you can't seem to make it come out the way you envisioned it?  Yeah, that's what happened there.  So, I had to move on to Plan B.  Fortunately, as I mentioned before, I had done some shopping.  My daughter Meredith and I went to Craft Warehouse on Saturday, and followed that up wiih a trip to the brand new JoAnn's, which moved from another location- and oh, what a beautiful store!!  Their paper crafting section is at least twice the size of their old store, and EVERYTHING was on sale!  I got lots of paper, a leaf stamp set, a snowflake Sizzlits die, and several other items that I probably would not have paid full price for, but at 40% off, who could resist?  One of the papers I got was a Christmas holly paper, and that is what I used to design my Christmas card.  I am pretty happy with the results, and will post a pic when I finalize the design.  I am happy with what I have done so far, but still have to finalize a couple of details before I can consider it "done".

In the meantime, I realized that my husband's neice Monica will be 13 in the next week- how did that happen already?!  I remember visiting just after she was born, a chicken lasagna in hand for her parents, and it seems like just last week!  Oh how time flies anymore!  Anyway, I wanted to make a card to send her.  I found a really cool paper at JoAnn's yesterday that was very similar in its look to the mottled look I did in my last card with stamp ink- only this would save me a lot of work (and ink) since the paper already has the design on it.  I wanted to try something similar to that last card, but with a different technique.  On this one, I stamped the flower design in white pigment ink, then embossed it with a sparkly embossing powder.  The result is kind of a translucent but sparkly, iridescent finish.

So, here is what I did here: the card is a white card base, to which I attached a purple card front, then a turquoise piece that I punched with a corner punch for interest.  Then I stamped the patterned paper with the flower stamp and White Frost pigment ink and embossed with a sparkly iridescent embossing powder.  I stamped the Happy Birthday message in purple, and embossed with the same embossing powder.  I then added the lavendar ribbon.

I also embellished the inside of the card:

This was fun- I used a border punch for the sides, and the same corner punch that was used on the front, on a piece of light purple pastel card stock, and put it over the white inside of the card.  Then I added a white piece of card stock that I had punched out the corners with the same corner punch, and stamped the sentiment with purple pigment stamp ink.

I really like this.  I had been thinking since I made the cards for the June PBS Swappers swap about an alternate method of doing the silhouette in white against a mottled background, and am glad to have found something that works.  It was also fun to experiment with the sparkly embossing powder.  One of these days, I will be brave and try a colored embossing powder, like my daughter is itching to do!

I have lots of new things to try in the near future- amongst my new acquisitions is a set of watercolor paints, so there is a technique with those I want to try soon.  I also have plenty of stamps to play with, so look forward to that.  If only I had more time to do crafting!  Well, it is a 3 day weekend, and I have much of tomorrow that I can use for experimenting.  I am having a lot of fun, that is for sure!  I'll be sure to post pictures next time!